


woke up feeling like the walls caved in

by questionsthemselves



Series: steer your way through the ruins [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Gen, I don't even know y'all, Missing Scene, post-exile ficbit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-06 21:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13420122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionsthemselves/pseuds/questionsthemselves
Summary: “Hey buddy, everything okay?”The voice is high, and far too inquisitive for a space port bartender. Charlie upends his glass, lets the last dribble of brew burn down his throat. There’s some tinny cover of a Andoran pop song ten years past it prime whining out of the sound system. It’s playing over and over on repeat, scraping and scuttling across his skin. His blaster presses heavy between his shoulder blades, and he shifts.He’s only three drinks into what’s clearly a ten drinks kind of evening. Time to start fixing that.After the exile, Charlie-27 and Martinex don't cope





	1. all fell down

**Author's Note:**

> so i don't have an explanation for this except for apparently Yondu gave Charlie-27 a yaka knife at some point and also Charlie doesn't get nearly enough love so have a thing

“Hey buddy, everything okay?” 

The voice is high, and far too inquisitive for a space port bartender. Charlie upends his glass, lets the last dribble of brew burn down his throat. 

There’s some tinny cover of a Andoran pop song ten years past it prime whining out of the sound system. It’s playing over and over on repeat, scraping and scuttling across his skin. His blaster presses heavy between his shoulder blades, and he shifts. 

He’s only three drinks into what’s clearly a ten drinks kind of evening. Time to start fixing that.

“‘Nother one,” he gently bumps his glass towards the bartender, some blue-haired kid who looks way too fucking young to be calling him anything so familiar. They’re definitely too young to be dishing up the kind of skin-stripping pain-thinner masquerading as alcohol that’s served here. 

The kid just looks at him. Charlie squints back. 

The hell are they waiting for. 

“C’mon, whatever shit’s cheapest ’s fine,” Charlie dully taps the side of the glass with a blunt nail, once, twice. It’s sitting just shy of it’s two empty fellows so he nudges it neatly into line, the three of them squatting in dispassionate rank.

Yondu would have made fun of him for that. He’d always shoved his cups into precarious wobbling stacks, laughing uproariously when they inevitably tumbled and shattered on whatever poor soul was unfortunate enough to bump them. 

Charlie’s shoulder bunch tight enough to hurt, send a spike of pain into his scalp. He makes himself relax. 

The kid shifts, scrunches their lips up. 

“Dunno what you’re trying t’drink away, but there’s cheaper ways to get dead,” their voice is quiet enough no one’s gonna here them over the dull resentful hum of the bar, but Charlie scowls, fingers blanching as they press into the bar top. 

“Pretty sure you don’t get paid enough to be spouting off opinions on my personal habits.”

He doesn’t have the patience for this tonight. If the kid’s any kind of smart, they’ll know a warning when they hear one. 

“You ain’t been here long, but I have. You running away from something, this ain’t the place t’do it.” 

Guess they won’t. Kid’s got a scrote, gotta give them that. Most take one look at Charlie’s size, the flame on his chest, and decide putting up a fight isn’t gonna turn out well for them. Even out here on the edge of nowhere, there aren’t many willing to piss off a Ravager. 

They're practically a baby too, can’t have more than fourteen or fifteen years on them. Before he leaves this shitstain of a space port, he’s gotta check into that, make sure no one’s doing them wrong. Wouldn’t be the first kid he’s had to relocate from their keepers, with a few gentle threats so the scumbags didn’t get any ideas about following. 

Charlie raises an eyebrow.“You give advice to all the spacers, or am I just special?”

“You seem like you need it,” the kid shrugs, “and you tip, so.”

Charlie eyes the oozing spout. It drips amber and thick, smells strong enough to choke a horse. 

He need another. 

“If you ain’t gonna serve me,” Charlie leans on the edge of the bar until it creaks weakly in protest, “s’ppose I’d better be taking my business elsewhere.” 

The kid holds up their hands in surrender. 

“Fine,” they grumble, “When your buddies show up, not gonna say I didn’t warn ya.”

Charlies snorts. Right. Like any of them are gonna pull themselves outta their own heads long enough to think about him right now. Stakar’s doing his damnedest to pretend he doesn’t care. He hadn't even looked at Charlie when he’d told Stakar he was taking off on a “scouting job.”

Not that Charlie hasn’t earned the leeway. He’s been with Stakar since the beginning, since Stakar had blasted some snarl-mouthed Badoon off a bloody, screaming Charlie, grieving and incoherent and utterly alone. Stakar had stayed with him, after that. He’d known what is was like too, after all, to lose everything. 

Aleta had fucked off to who knows where, not that Charlie blames her. Yondu had been her boy in all but blood, and losing kids twice? 

Charles scrubs a hand across his face. Martinex hasn’t showed his face since the trial, and who the hell knew where Krugarr and Mainframe were. 

And Yondu… Yondu’s probably gone by now, if that scraggly bug-eyed first mate of his has done his duty. There hasn’t been a challenge in years, but every Ravager has heard the stories. And a dead code-breaker won’t be given honors, won’t be send gently off with the colors and the horns. 

If the new captain’s generous, Yondu will be incinerated. If not, his body will be thrown out the airlock. Charlie can see it every time he closes his eyes, red eyes frozen over, blue skin cracked and burst. 

His friend, alone, hanging frozen in the cold, dark space between stars.

Charlie’s throat feels like it’s closing up, and he coughs but it doesn’t help. He should’t have left. He should have stopped it, damn the Code.  What’s that saying? Fool me twice, shame on me? Charlie’s gut twists, sour and heavy. He should have learned his lesson last time he tried to do the right thing, tried to follow orders. 

And this time, there isn’t even a body to grieve over.

“Here,” the kid slides Charlie’s drink begrudgingly over to him. He downs it in one go and slides the empty glass back with a grunted,“‘Nother.”

It joins the others, lonely glass soldiers in their aimless rank and file. 


	2. never go back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Charlie slides into the bar seat the next night, that same fucking kid is there serving. They give him a narrow-eyed look, but don’t try to talk to him – just slide over a glass brimming with whatever cheap swill’s on tap tonight. Charlie downs the first half in one swallow, then runs his tongue over his teeth. Whatever this brew is, it’s even fouler than yesterday’s.
> 
> “Here to keep drinking yourself to death?” the kid says, “At least tonight you’ll have your buddy to keep you company.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the bit of comic backstory I'm referencing here for Charlie-27, which I've taken quite of lot of liberty with, is more or less that while he was a captain in the Jovian military he was on a long-term mission and came back to find himself the only survivor of a Badoon genocide. Also the language used for Jovian at the end is Xhosa, the gorgeous real language used for Wakandan in the Marvel cinematic universe.

When Charlie slides into the bar seat the next night, that same fucking kid is there serving. They give him a narrow-eyed look, but don’t try to talk to him – just slide over a glass brimming with whatever cheap swill’s on tap tonight. Charlie downs the first half in one swallow, then runs his tongue over his teeth. Whatever this brew is, it’s even fouler than yesterday’s. 

“Here to keep drinking yourself to death?” the kid says, “At least tonight you’ll have your buddy to keep you company.”

Buddy? There’s another Ravager here? Charlie lets his knife, Yondu’s knife, slide out of his sleeve. He checks his comm religiously every morning, and there wasn’t any talk on the comm about a faction coming this way. Who the hell besides Stakar would even have known he was here? 

“Flark,” the kid jerks back, “you in trouble with other Ravagers or something, what the hell.”

Charlie rubs along the blade and up the handle as he scans the room. His thumb traces red to gold, red to gold. There’s no Ravagers at the bar top, but out of the corner of his eye something glints sharp and bright, tucked in the back corner. He shoves his boot against the stool, twisting him around. 

Oh. Martinex. 

What the hell is he doing here?

Seems like Martinex realizes he’s been noticed, because he pushes himself to his feet, starts towards him. His leathers are scuffed and marked, dirtier than Charlie’s ever seem them on the weirdly neat Martinex, and his boots are three days out from their usual polish.  Whatever drink hanging limply from his hand isn’t his usual, something kind of viscous blue-black paint-thinner of a drink. 

“Still have that, huh?” Martinex nods at Charlie’s knife. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you without it.” 

“Why are you here, Marty?” Charlie slides the knife back into its sheath, gropes for his glass.

Martinex bites his upper lip, and lets himself slump into the seat next to Charlie. 

“What, couldn’t just be here to check on a friend?” 

Charlie snorts. “Right.”

They’ve never been close, the two of them. Charlie had always had Stakar, for long amiable nights drunk away mellow, Charlie complaining about the shenanigans of the younger crew, or Stakar moping about whatever way he’d let his lunkheadedness fuck things up with Aleta this time. 

And Martinex had always had Yondu. 

The kid takes one look at the tension in Charlie's shoulders, the way Martinex is etching circles into his glass with a stony finger and sidles slowly towards the opposite end of the counter. 

Martinex watches him, then says abruptly, “I’m here about Yondu,” 

Charlie snorts. “Isn’t it a little late for that?”

He still remembers the wariness in his eyes the first time a newly-freed Yondu had met him. He still remembers the way Yondu’d bared his teeth, looked him up and down like he was just daring Charlie to start something, the fierce little fucker. Most people were intimidated by Charlie’s size, but not him.

Charlie still remembers the first time Yondu had looked up at him with something like trust.

“Charlie,” Martinex worries at his lip harder, starts to reach a hand out but Charlie jerks away.

“We should have handled it differently,” he bites out.“We _failed_ him.”

“The council voted,” Martinex says weakly.

"The council was _wrong,_ ” Charlies slams his glass down hard enough to rattle the others out of line. He ignores them, gropes for the bottle the kid had left when they retreated to the other end of the bar.

“There isn’t anything you could have done, Charlie,” Martinex is biting his damn lip again. Maybe if he gets punched in it, it’ll make him stop. “This isn’t Jupiter.”

Charlie’s shoulders hike up.

“I was drunk when I told y’that,’” his voice is hoarse and he turns his head, clear his throat. “Gonna throw it in my face now?”

Martinex looks at him for moment, then turns back to stare at the shelving like he’s trying to will a bottle closer. 

“I needed to let you know…” he stops, shifts. 

Charlie scrubs a hand across his face. “Just tell me.” 

Whatever it is, waiting won’t ward it off. 

Martinex’s hands flex. He looks back straight at Charlie and says soft like broken things, “Yondu’s alive.”

Charlie can’t breath. 

“Bullshit,” he keeps his face blank. “The code’s clear.” 

He doesn’t know what kind of game Martinex is dealing him here, but he isn’t gonna play.

“Except that first mate of his,” Martinex voice wavers, “that first mate of his broke it. They were seen on Knowhere, the both of them, still wearing the Ravager flame.”

Yondu’s not dead. Charlie’s elbows slide apart, buries his face against his fists and tries to breathe. Yondu’s _alive._ And he still has his ship, and his crew, and– 

Stakar. 

“Does Stakar know?” 

“Of course he knows,” Martinex’s voice is bitter. “He probably knew before anyone else did.”

Of course he did, the unhelpfully precognitive bastard. 

“And Aleta?” 

“She hasn’t been taking calls, but I sent a message to her comm,” Martinex says. “Krugarr and Mainframe too. Stakar sent me to bring you back, I figured you’d rather get the news in person.”

Charlie nods, but he isn’t really listening. That first mate of Yondu’s broke the code for him? Got himself and whatever crew stayed with them put under exile too? If anyone was gonna break the code for Yondu, Charlie would’ve thought it would have been Martinex. The stupid bastard’s been in love with him for years, not that he’s ever gotten up the guts to say anything about it. 

Charlie’s breathes slow and measured, in and out. They’ve chosen a rough road for themselves, Yondu and his first. They may wear the Ravager flame, but the code is clear. No one that wants to deal with Ogord will deal with a code-breaker flaunting his flame. 

But Yondu’s still alive – still probably strutting around in his ridiculous fur-hemmed getup, snarking and tumbling himself head-first into whatever seems like the most amount of trouble – alive and whole and breathing. 

And Charlie decides.

“I’m not coming back,” he says low, “‘Not to Stakar’s crew.”

Martinex looks gutted. “You’re leaving the Ravagers, what–”

“Not leaving the Ravagers,” Charlie cuts him off, “Leaving to start my own faction.” 

Martinex only looks marginally less upset at this. “Your own faction…?”

“It’s time,” Charlie drains the last of his glass, sets it down firm.“Stakar’s been mentioning it for years after all.”

“You know he was only saying that because he felt he should, he doesn’t really want you to leave–“ Martinex voice pitches higher and faster with each word.

“To hell with what Stakar wants,” Charlie shakes his head sharp, slides the knife out to thumb over it again methodically, blade to handle. He’ll always be a Ravager, owes too much to Stakar and the others to ever abandon them, but it’s time to be his own captain, control his own piece of space.

And if Yondu ever happens to find himself running around that patch of sky, well, Charlie might have to look hard the other way.

Martinex swallows, but doesn’t argue with him anymore. 

“I’ll tell Stakar, if you want,” he offers quiet, “Give him time to get used to it, before you start the whole process.” 

Charlie grins at him, humorless. “I’ll do it. Gotta pull out my funds for a ship outta the system there, anyways.”

“Your own ship,” Martinex gives him a half smile back. “What’ll you call her?”

Charlie breathes, pushes himself to his feet. 

“Think I’m gonna call her the _Utolo.”_

Martinex inhales sharp.

“Isn’t that Jovian for..?” 

“Arrow,” Charlie says over his shoulder as he walks towards the door, “It’s Jovian for arrow.” 

He doesn’t look back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...aaaand that's it for now folks! Tune in next time for more angst.

**Author's Note:**

> comments make the heart grow fonder


End file.
